The race towards business process automation is one that can overwhelm you in many ways. You may automate a process, then, later regret the decision. What can make you regret automation?
Better yet, the question you should be asking is how and when you should decide to automate. Worry no more. Everything is in this short but straight-to-the-point article.
You should automate a business process if the activities involved are time or resource-intensive.
For better understanding, you should first grab the concepts of automation. Next, you should know examples of tasks that are either time or resource-intensive. Lastly, you will find out the most common area that everyone ought to automate after 2020.
What is more? Let’s get started.
The Kernel of Automation
Simply put, automation is setting systems and processes to work with little or no human intervention. Here, you let machines see, think, and make independent decisions. As magical as it may sound, it is the trend in 21st-century production.
The 4th industrial revolution forces firms to make decisions— on data— if they want to remain productive. To achieve this, the firms apply technologies of artificial intelligence, robots, and the internet of things to make data-driven decisions.
However, since these technologies are not yet stable in the marketplace, going full automation may attract certain drawbacks. For example, the full installation cost may scare you away.
Certain processes still need human-human emotional interaction. As a starter pack, automate the following process.
Time and Resource Intensive Processes to Automate If You Want to Remain Competitive
If you undertake mass production and need to speed up production or supply chain, consider automating the following tasks:
Repetitive tasks
The human brain hates repetition. The more you expose your employees to repetitive tasks, two things are bound to happen. The workers become bored or pay less attention to the activity at hand. To avoid losing resources due to employee errors, automate repetitive tasks such as software updates, inventory management as well as security checks.
Tasks that Demand High Intelligence and Decision-making
If the process requires the highest form of intelligence, automate it. Besides, the tasks may need faster data collection and decision making.
For example, an accounting department needs to determine when to give or deny loans to a particular target market. Humans may not be faster than cobots in researching and approving loans to the market.
Real-time Tracking
Having data at the fingertips will enable you to make the best business decision, at the right time, in the fast-paced world. For instance, you need to determine how customers react to new products. Not only that.
You may, as well, want to track the movement of consumables to the target consumers. Automating the process will enable you to know when, where, and how to serve the consumer.
Risky Processes
If you can, stop exposing your employees to risky processes such as large part CNC machining. Not only can the injury result in higher treatment costs but humans also slow down the heat-intensive process.
And here is the more exciting part. You don’t have to automate every detail of the risky process. Start with the critical ones.
Critical Production Processes to Automate as soon as You Can
The typical automation environments are for manufacturing. Manufacturing entails combining manual labor with machines to achieve an activity.
Manual labor relies on human strength to accomplish production. You can group the laborers according to their skillset. The employees may use intelligent machines to undertake assembly line processes.
However, depending on the disadvantages of humans in production — as I discussed above— you will need to use intelligent robots to beautify the manufacturing processes.
Final Thoughts
The fast-paced tech world demands automation to accomplish business processes. It may be impossible or irrelevant to automate all processes at once.
Automate those processes that are time or resource-intensive. These may be real-time tracking and emotion-independent tasks such as those of mass production.
